


pick your poison

by desperheaux



Category: Dreamcatcher (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Humor, alt alt title: we are all one simp. the handong simp., alt title: narcissus made some points when he sang 'no doctor can help when I'm lovesick'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 05:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30033525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperheaux/pseuds/desperheaux
Summary: So really, Gahyeon has been having a rough day for about a month now. And as she catches herself staring from across the table, absentmindedly swapping herself with the chestnut that Handong daintily raises to her lips, she realizes that her suffering runs far deeper than she had originally thought.(The obligatory Poison Love MV-inspired drabble of indulgence)
Relationships: Han Dong | Handong/Everyone
Comments: 19
Kudos: 62





	pick your poison

**Author's Note:**

> yoo: she won’t treat you like i do dongie  
> yoo: dongie please don’t text her back  
> yoo: missed call [500]  
> dami: 역도유빈 just landed in LA baby
> 
> (I'm sure there are/will be a thousand of these poison love mv-inspired Handong Harem fics, but I absolutely had to write one just so I had an excuse to post this meme)

Gahyeon is having a rough day.

Rather, it is one of those days that dovetails from the previous one and promises to slog into the next much the same, based on the universal fact that suffering is rarely a short-lived, one-time-only event.

So really, Gahyeon has been having a rough day for about a month now. And as she catches herself staring from across the table, absentmindedly swapping herself with the chestnut that Handong daintily raises to her lips, she realizes that her suffering runs far deeper than she had originally thought. The bustle of the food court around them fades into the background as her wide eyes fixate upon the slight bob of Handong’s throat as she swallows.

“Did you want some, Gahyeonie?”

Gahyeon snaps out of her trance, swallowing far too quickly in response. She meets her friend’s blessedly oblivious gaze with a pained smile.

“I’m good,” she manages to robotically choke out. Gahyeon is far from good. Gahyeon is suffering. Handong nods and withdraws her proffered snack with a comforting pat to Gahyeon’s back.

Gahyeon chokes again.

Handong gracefully shakes out her sleeve and glances at her watch, one of those vintage rose gold Rolexes that rests perfect on her wrist because its wearer is also pretty and expensive, and rises with an apologetic sigh that has no business sounding like a dainty, light summer breeze that caresses Gahyeon’s burning red ears.

“I have to go prepare for a tutoring session. I’ll see you later, maybe we can go out for drinks this weekend!”

With a lipstick check in her reflective phone case, a final “it’s always lovely seeing you,” and a smile that leaves Gahyeon without any breath left to choke further on, Handong leaves the crowded, musty food court in absurd style and class.

Now that she’s gone, the noise of all the students around her crashes back into existence, and Gahyeon figures it’s loud enough to mask the pitiful groan she lets out as she drops her forehead to the sticky table surface. She is already suffering. A bit of unwiped ketchup from past patrons is nothing compared to this agony.

So lost is she in her wallowing that she doesn’t hear the person slide into the vacant seat across from her.

“Why the long face, cutie?”

She doesn’t have to lift her head to recognize the husky voice as that of resident school flirt, Siyeon. “You can’t even see my face,” she monotones.

“I already know it’s cute.” There is a pause in which Siyeon probably does that eyebrow-wiggle thing she thinks is sexy and most everyone else thinks is just creepy. “But seriously, what’s the matter, baby? You’ve looked out of it for a while now. You haven’t flirted back in like, a month.”

“I haven’t flirted back ever, actually,” Gahyeon says flatly, finally peeling her face off of the table to glare. She crosses her arms, but they fall limp over her apparently weak heart as she sighs and says, “And it’s nothing. Nothing you could help with, anyway.”

Siyeon fixes her with an intense stare for a moment, its potency lost with an accompanying eyebrow-wiggle of discernment. She says nothing, though, and simply continues her weird facial maneuvers, until Gahyeon decides she’s had enough of the interruption to her wallowing.

“What?”

“It’s a love problem, isn't it.”

Gahyeon blanches. “How did you — I mean, no, what are you even talking about?”

Siyeon sits back triumphantly. “I knew it. I saw the way you were looking at her. Listen, you and I, we’re the same —” she ignores Gahyeon’s indignant noise, “— and so are a bunch of others. There’s a little group on campus for people just like us.”

“I’m lovesick, not an alcoholic,” Gahyeon means to say snidely, but just letting out that first part, admitting to the root of her suffering, lifts a bit off of the weight on her chest.

“Love, drugs; they’re both just different forms of poison, if you think about it. So think about it.” Siyeon rises to finally leave her to her suffering, pausing to whisper unnecessarily close to Gahyeon’s ear: “Room ninety-six, east wing of the Psych building. Tonight at seven.”

Gahyeon has no intention of going. Siyeon, despite her vague creepiness, is pretty harmless, but Gahyeon still doesn’t want to entertain the possibility of walking into a room that only has her and a speaker blasting Careless Whispers in it. And also, Gahyeon doesn’t need support. She’s good. She’s fine. Handong’s fine. Very fine. And hot. And cool. A contradiction that makes sense because she’s a goddess and magically makes it work.

Gahyeon groans, and drops her head onto old ketchup stains again.

Maybe the other universal fact about suffering holds true: it is made more bearable in the company of others. She hopes. Otherwise she is going to regret this decision even more than she regrets going to that party with Handong about a month ago.

She is already having a rough day. It can’t get any worse, right?

At seven, she knocks timidly on the door to room ninety-six. The rectangular window pane is taped over with black construction paper, making the indistinguishable shouts from within even more unnerving.

All noise ceases as the door swings open.

Five pairs of unreadable eyes look back at her. Her day gets worse. Because somehow, out of the multitudes of university strangers who could have been a part of this shady gathering, she knows all five of these students.

Standing with an uncapped marker in hand in front of a whiteboard that for some reason reads nothing but ‘HOES’ in block letters, is Jiu: school princess with vibes almost as expensive as Handong, everyone usually far too intimidated by her haughty appearance to approach her. Sua, infamous mischief-maker with an obnoxiously loud voice to match her personality, appears to hold no such qualms as she is frozen on her tip-toes with a fist shaken in Jiu’s face.  
Yoohyeon, the one nerd in Gahyeon’s classes who reminds the professor about the homework due, sits attentively in her desk-chair with hands folded atop a neatly color-coded binder. Siyeon similarly sits and regards her from her seat, but she has another desk-chair dragged diagonally so she can prop her feet up on it in a poor attempt at looking suave.

The last woman is the one who opened the door for her with inadvertent chivalrous flair, Dami: the jock who is always either lifting weights or carbo-loading to lift more weights, who Gahyeon also used to have a passing crush on. Before Handong. Before the universe decided she needed to suffer like this.

“You joining us today or not, babe?”

Gahyeon takes another second to stare at Siyeon, and then around at the others again.

“What is this, _The Breakfast Club_?”

Sua takes her fist out of Jiu’s face, interested. “You brought breakfast?”

“Huh?”

“What’re you servin’?”

“Looks,” Siyeon says with a salacious smirk, at the same time Yoohyeon adjusts her glasses and says, “Character tropes.”

Jiu looks scandalized. “Now why would I ever order breakfast catering at seven in the evening?”

Sua sneers. “First time for everythin’, princess. Isn't that what she said?”

The sound of the door slamming shut startles them out of a resumed shouting match. Dami pats the handle in apology for underestimating her own strength, and ushers Gahyeon further in with bewilderingly gentle hands. She settles into her seat and digs into the package of radish cubes she left on the desk. Gahyeon supposes her fate has been sealed, so she drags her own desk-chair from the wall to sit as far from Siyeon as possible.

Jiu clears her throat pointedly. Sua rolls her eyes but lets up so the… meeting?... can begin, plopping down in a desk right up underneath the whiteboard, just to be difficult.

“Since we have a newcomer, shall we begin with introductions?” Jiu scribbles an ‘INTRO’ below the ‘HOES’, and ignores Sua’s mocking imitation of “I dunno, _shall_ we?”

Yoohyeon flips open her binder and dutifully scribbles something onto a page full of complicated notes and diagrams, and it is then with a confused frown that Gahyeon shoots a hand up.

“Would you like to start us off, newcomer?” Jiu points her marker. Yoohyeon makes another note.

“No, no,” Gahyeon waves her hands. Yoohyeon draws a line through the note. “Are you transcribing literally everything… anyway, no, I just want to know: What the hell even is this, exactly?”

All pairs of eyes fall to Siyeon, who merely winks back at them all. Gahyeon isn't sure which is cause for more disbelief: the fact that Siyeon brought in a person to this odd, seemingly exclusive gathering without any concrete explanation as to what it actually is, or the fact that Gahyeon showed up anyway.

“A safe space,” Dami says, equal parts evasive and reassuring.

“For like-minded people,” Yoohyeon adds. “As many differences as we possess, we all hold one striking similarity, and this is what unifies us just as it divides us.”

“It takes guts, kid, acknowledgin’ yourself as one of us.” Sua thumps her chest with a fist.

“That is, of course, if you are here for the reason we think you are,” Jiu says with an icy glare in Siyeon’s direction. “If not, I’m going to have to ask you to leave and forget you saw anything tonight.”

Sua scoffs. “Why do _you_ get to control the proceedings, again?”

“Because I’m the only one who has been successful in my endeavours,” Jiu sniffs. The small classroom is filled with boos and hisses in response.

Alarmed at the exceedingly high possibility that she has been tricked into joining some sort of cult, Gahyeon interrupts the ensuing five-way argument with a nervous chuckle.

“Whoa, whoa… I’m just here because I may or may not be having… love problems. Siyeon said you guys were in the same boat or something.”

“Specify the who and the category of said ‘love problems’?” Yoohyeon clicks her pen. The others fix their grim attention back to Gahyeon, who shrinks in her seat. The prospect of admitting it out loud is less therapeutic and more embarrassing, now that she is about to do so to five prominent figures on campus who are definitely acquainted with the ‘who’ in question. Because who doesn’t know of Handong? Beautiful, gorgeous, ethereal Handong? Endlessly funny, endearingly clever, smells-like-roses and sparkles-like-diamonds Handong?

Gahyeon swallows thickly.

“...I might have a really big crush… on my friend Handong.”

An incredulous silence follows her confession. She sinks even further into her seat.

And then Jiu tsks. “Is that it?”

“Join the club,” Siyeon lilts with a much more genuine, wry smirk.

Gahyeon blinks. Everyone is looking back at her, thoroughly amused instead of judgmental.

“...Huh?”

“I think we’ve _all_ had a crush on Handong,” Sua says, almost offended, like she can’t believe Gahyeon thought that she was unique in her affections. Dami and Yoohyeon nod in agreement. She continues with an emphatic slap to her desk. “Those of us here surpass a mere _crush_ on Handong. No ‘may or may not’s. If you’re with us, you’re in _love_. I once lost my shoes and crawled on my hands and knees for her. Fuckin’ commit to it, coward.”

“She’s my Mandarin tutor, and earlier today she called me an idiot,” Yoohyeon sighs wistfully. “If only every other day in this life could be as wonderful.”

“She stole my chestnuts,” Jiu says, eyes far away as if reliving the memory. “No one’s ever dared to steal my chestnuts before.”

“I was lifting weights and she tripped near me, so I dropped everything and caught her… now the only thing I want is to hold her in my arms and protect her from ever falling again.” Dami mournfully holds up a radish and gazes at it as if it contains Handong’s face.

“I was just walkin’ by, ready to meddle in someone else’s business, when she passed by and whipped me with her long, luscious hair… my thoughts used to be empty, only chaos,” Sua whines, “and now I can’t get her out of my mind!”

“I bought her a drink one time. She looked disgusted.” Siyeon shrugs. “I think my chances are still good.”

On any other day, Gahyeon might have thrown them all a creeped out look and then bolted from the room. As it is, Gahyeon is having a rough day. Which has actually been a series of rough days, the pain of her predicament submerging and dragging her through one twenty-four hour tidal wave of anguish into the next.

And now here she is, about a month after she linked arms with Handong at that party and chugged her drink only to drop her cup and realize the faint flush on her friend’s cheekbones and the smile playing on her lips was the prettiest thing she’s ever seen in her entire life.

And she has just found out that at least five others are experiencing the exact same struggle. Which in any other circumstance would be a comforting thought, but not now, not when—

“I’m in love with Handong,” she mumbles miserably, “too.”

The other five exchange a glance. Yoohyeon flips to the very back of her color-coded binder, and pulls out a thick ream of paper. She hands it over to Jiu, who shuffles them neatly for a moment before giving them to Gahyeon with a solemn nod.

“Welcome to SHH.”

Gahyeon blinks, unsure as to why she is being shushed.

“Simping Hard for Handong,” Dami elaborates around a mouthful of radish. “The ‘f’ is silent.”

“Colloquially, of course,” Yoohyeon nudges up her glasses importantly, “we are known as SHH. Our official name is ‘Handong’s Order of Elite Simps’, however…”

“Ah,” says Gahyeon, staring at the whiteboard with deadened eyes. “So when you said ‘join the club’...”

Jiu nods very seriously again, and taps the packet of papers. “Sign and date here.”

The first page is a bunch of pretentiously worded jargon that Gahyeon refuses to decode. The rest, she realizes as she flips through skimming, is just poetic waxing about Handong.

“...What am I signing?”

“A binding contract that ensures equal opportunity in our individual quests to woo Handong,” Yoohyeon explains. “Each of us get one twenty-four hour period per week to try and win her over, without interference from the others. The remaining hours in the week are a free-for-all. Please note the newly amended Article III, Section V, which prohibits attempted manslaughter of any degree.”

Sua whistles innocently.

“Should you refuse the terms of agreement, we cannot guarantee fair play on your behalf, now that you know about our organization.”

There must be something in the food court water. Some sort of poison that’s driven these people to madness.

Or, maybe it’s just Handong.

She thinks about the impossibly stunning woman, and the even worse suffering her soul would undergo if she were to be murdered before she got the chance to shoot her shot, and Gahyeon’s hand moves almost of its own accord.

“Welcome to SHH, officially, Gahyeon. Now, the next order of business.”

Yoohyeon swipes the signed contract away to tuck behind a red tab in her binder, and Gahyeon looks up to watch Jiu underline ‘SIMP’ on the whiteboard.

So, yeah. Handong.

Gahyeon’s day continues to be rough.

**Author's Note:**

> an aside: when handong says "it's always lovely to see you" she's talking to her own reflection
> 
> I know I could easily get carried away with this but I am determined not to. I am determined. I am so utterly, wholly determined. I am s*forcibly restrains self from writing scene in which sua hops on a desk to intervene in jiyoo's catfight while on the other side of the room gahyeon straight up tries to murder siyeon for stealing her kiss from handong as dami casually lifts weights in the corner*


End file.
